NECPlatform Policy Brief #2 – By Giulia Pizzini (IEECP) and Mélanie Bourgeois (Energy Cities), with inputs from all partners.
This policy brief aims to highlight the benefits of multilevel governance processes, specifically the Climate and Energy Dialogues (CED), to meet EU and Member States’ climate and energy targets. It also shows the limits of the current framework provided by Article 11 of the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action Regulation (1999/2018) and offers recommendations and inspiration for the European Commission and Member States to better leverage the potential of multilevel governance.
The NECPlatform project underscores the importance of multilevel dialogues in the coming years, urging Member States and the European Commission to strengthen and more effectively implement the Governance Regulation.
The Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action mandates Member States to set up multilevel energy and climate dialogues. Most Member States are reporting on such activities only when they design or revise the National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs). While, as of September 4, 2024, only 10 out of 27 Member States have submitted a final revised version of these plans – due back in June 2024 – the NECPlatform project stresses the importance of strengthening multilevel governance when revising the Governance Regulation. This is essential to successfully transpose the Green Deal legislation into national law and implement NECPs.
Half-hearted implementation of multilevel climate and energy dialogues
Member states were required to submit to the European Commission a draft version of their revised NECP in June 2023 and a final one in June 2024. The European Commission’s assessments of the draft revised NECPs and their report on the NECPs’ implementation highlight that, although all Member states mention multilevel dialogues, the quality of these processes varies significantly. Few Member States have detailed how such dialogues have fed into their plans, and even fewer have set up long-term dialogue platforms.
This clearly shows that the framework established by the Governance Regulation is insufficient, as the core principles of Article 11 are not respected. We need to go further and showcase why such multilevel processes are essential to success.
A greater need for multilevel dialogues in the coming years
The Green Deal has focused a great deal of attention on the local and regional level, with new planning obligations, targets, as well as technical and financial support from Member States. Thus, to implement these policies, it will be all the more essential to have multilevel dialogues to:
- Ensure that the targets set at national level reflect reality, matching the observations coming from local and regional levels, as well as from businesses.
- Discuss the implementation of new objectives and plans imposed on local authorities and businesses, the obstacles that may arise, and share good practices.
- Define the best and most efficient way to set up new financial and technical support mechanisms or improve existing ones, matching local authorities’ and businesses’ needs.
- Preparing the ground for the next NECPs or Long-Term Strategy for 2040 and 2050
The experience of the NECPlatform project, which sets up multilevel dialogues in 6 Member States confirms the relevance of such an approach. In Romania, the dialogues have led to a readjustment of the national objectives and are well on the way of removing obstacles to the creation of citizen energy communities. In Croatia, they have led to in-depth discussions on the effectiveness of financial aid programmes. The French regions have initiated regional COP processes to take ownership of and distribute national objectives.
Strengthening the Regulation on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action
To this end the NECPlatform project encourages the new college of European Commissioners that will be formed in autumn 2024 to:
The brief was developed in the framework of the NECPlatform LIFE-funded project. The NECPlatform Project helps 6 EU Member States set up multi-level dialogue platforms, to raise the voices of local decision-makers and stakeholders in national energy and climate policies. These dialogues present an opportunity for Member States, in the process of updating their National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs), to reinforce multi-level governance in drafting these plans, as requested by the European Commission.
More on the project: https://energy-cities.eu/project/life-necplatform/
